Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Carol

I think they are trying to expand the award to NEMs, but still can't quite get away from the engineering mindset.

I’ve given a lot of thought to the role of the NEM on a FIRST team (especially a FRC team). I stepped into the role out of sheer necessity almost 10 years ago. I certainly wasn’t planning on it. At that time I could find few resources about the organizational and business side of running a team. There seemed to be some teams doing a pretty good job of it, but FRC had almost no information to share.

The Chief Delphi forums were a lifesaver.

Each year the Competition manual gets a little better at outlining some suggested “NEM” tasks, and most years FRC has also had a Handbook. http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...FRC%20team.pdf

We started NEMO as a support group, but also as a clearinghouse for some simple “how-to” papers, based on lessons learned from the people who were already doing the job. I’ve met many folks who could be great resources for FIRST - including an entrepreneur who has written a how-to practical guide for starting a business (we were judging partners at a Regional).

I spent 5 years passing suggestions and resources up to HQ, including helping with many drafts of the Handbook and the Mentor Resources Library, and I still feel the same way: if the mission really is to change the culture and not just build robots - a bit more attention needs to be paid to the organizational and business side of running a team.

Currently there are only two awards given out to recognize volunteers at the Regionals - the Volunteer of the Year (usually given out based on work on an event level) and the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award.

And most NEMs are not eligible for the WFFA.

It might be time for a culture change within the organization.